Beautiful Bilingual Vows to Begin our Bilingual Life Together

Francisco and I just celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. Our love story is a long story, and needs to be another post entirely, but to celebrate our anniversary, I'd like to share here with you our bilingual vows. From the very beginning, we knew we wanted to create a bilingual life together, and that started on the day we were married.

We had been to far too many bilingual weddings that were translated word for word, so as we were making decisions about our ceremony, we wanted to take the 45-minute Episcopal liturgy and divide up some sections in English and some sections in Spanish. Since we knew we would have friends and family in attendance who only spoke English, only spoke Spanish, and some who spoke both, we wanted to make sure both of our languages were represented without being exhaustively repetitive. So my dear friend and priest from Northeastern University led the English portion, and Francisco's dear friend and pastor from his childhood led the Spanish portion. It was a beautiful compilation of both of our identities, and I'd like to share our vows here with you today.

Yo, Francisco Barrios, te recibo a ti, Mae Waugh,

I, Mae Waugh, take you, Francisco Barrios,

para ser mi esposa.

to be my husband.

Yo te prometo estar a tu lado y tomar tu mano todo los días.

I vow to stand beside you and hold your hand every day.

en las alegrías y en las penas,

For better or for worse,

en la riqueza y en la pobreza,

For richer, and for poorer,

en la salud y en la enfermedad.

in sickness and in health.

I promise to teach you Spanish.

Te prometo enseñarte ingles.

Yo prometo amarte en los días mas difíciles.

I promise to love you when it’s most difficult.

Yo prometo darte mi apoyo en tus sueños,

I promise to give you my support for your dreams,

mi hombro por tus lagrimas,

my shoulder for your tears,

mis orejas por tu voz

my ear for your voice,

mis brazos por tu refugio,

my arms for your shelter,

y mis manos para construir nuestro futuro.

and my hands to build our future.

Ante todo, yo prometo que hoy es el día que te amaré hasta lo último.

Most of all, I promise that today is the day I will love you the least.

Hoy, enfrente de Dios y nuestra familia y nuestros queridos amigos,

Today, before our God and our family and our dearest friends,

Yo juro que yo nunca robaré, pelearé y engañaré

I vow to never lie, steal or fight.

Pero si peleo, peleo por ti.

But if I must fight, I will fight for you.

Pero si robo, robo su corazón.

If I must steal, I will steal your heart, again and again.

y si engaño, engañaré solamente cuando estemos muertos.

And if I must lie, I will lie in your arms in love forever,

Until death do us part.

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